I just wanted to take a minute to update everyone on beta, and what all has been done. Our vision of beta has changed quite a lot since we started this project back in November. Since we’re dealing with 25 year old code, a complete overhaul has basically been required to get the game up and running properly.

When we we say, “everything is different,” we mean it. Almost every single function has been altered in some way. The goal for this is to make everything not only easier to add to in the future, but also to just make everything far more efficient. There are bugs that have been in every version of Vampire Wars that we have fixed, and quite a few of them.

Unfortunately for you guys, the more we change, the longer things take. We currently have on MAJOR thing to finish before we open the doors: Saving clandiscs to the player files. Once this is complete, we’ll open the doors and let everyone go HAM on the testing. I know a lot of you guys have been in limbo because all of the VW muds either closed or suck, and I just wanted to thank all of you guys who have stuck around and are going to be testing the game and supplying feedback.

Spells

Spells now have a minimum level before you can cast them. This isn’t used right now, but many spells will be updated in the very near future.

Buffs are now based on the caster’s stats, not a flat number

This affects: armor, bless, dark bless, giant strength, poison, shield, stone skin (I’ll update this if I forgot some, as I’m still working on this)

Shield, Armor, and Stone Skin all currently give Armor. This may be changed in the future.

Weaken now reduces 50% of your base, permanent strength.

Poison now reduces your modified strength (the STR you get from gear), by 10% per stack.

All “breath” spells have been updated.

Gas breath now hits up to 12 targets and does 25% more damage than other breaths

Lightning breath now hits up to 12 targets and does not need a target. Has a small chance on hit to stun the target.

Fire breath now hits up to 12 targets and does not need a target. Has a small chance on hit to ignite the target, dealing 10% of the damage as additional damage over time. (IE, hit for 1k, then they get a 100 damage dot)

Frost breath now hits up to 12 targets and does not need a target. Has a small chance on hit to freeze the target. Frozen targets have a chance to not be able to attack.

Acid breath now hits up to 12 targets and does not need a target. Has a small chance on hit to eat through the armor of whoever it hits.

Fireball no longer hits twice (This was a fun bug that I accidentally created)

Energy Drain now heals based on how much damage was done, not by some arbitrary number

Questing

tl;dr Questing is gone, baby.

Seriously… Everyone but me hated questing, and I only didn’t hate it because I had a database of every single item in the entire game, aliases to get every single item, and a script to loop through the items I needed and literally go get them. Big shock, I botted questing. You damn right I did…

So, we listened to you guys. Questing is gone. There is a new system called Imbue, and that’s how you will add spells to your gear. Other than that, there will be items in the future to boost the stats on your gear, but for now, you get what you get so don’t throw a fit.

Combat

Combat overhauls have been a constant thing for us. The old combat system is just flawed and needs work, so here’s what we’ve done:

Block has been implemented. Got a shield in your OH? Sweet! You have a chance to block attacks…

Dodge and Parry have been updated.

A missed attack is rolled into Dodge, so you might not see a lot of miss messages, but it’s still factored in.

Weapon spells now trigger on each attack, and not once per round.

Spell shields now trigger on each attack, and not once per round.

Gear will no longer disappear when broken. Instead, a new system will be created for you to repair the item.